Timeless Gems: Classics of Hindi Theatre

In this piece, we delve into the timeless treasures of Hindi theatre—works that have traversed decades, imprinting themselves deeply on the minds of contemporary readers.

The Hindi theatre in India has survived on two streams of plays, first the plays written originally in Hindi and second all the adaptations into Hindi from all other languages, but mainly Marathi, Bengali and Kannad if we look at the pan Indian scene. Add to this the Hindi adaptations of foreign language plays through English driven by the need for variety in fare over the decades.

While Indian language plays written by Marathi playwrights like Vijay Tendulakar, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Purshottam Laxman Deshpsnde; Bengali playwrights like Badal Sircar, Kannad playwrights like Girish Karnad and Chandra Shekhar Kambar (the former chief of Sahitya Akademi) etc have enriched the Hindi theatre over the years and in a way projected something like the National or Indian theatre in that amalgamation, the outsiders from Lorka to French Moliere to Samuel Beckett to German Bertolt Brecht have also been represented in Hindi sufficiently.

But the scope of our discussion about best Hindi plays of all times restrains is to plays written originally in Hindi by the language writers beginning from Bharatendu Harishchandra in nineteenth century to Jai Shankar Prasad in early twentieth century and down to sixties and seventies and nineties in that century when the masters of the modern theatre writing like Dharamveer Bharati and Mohan Rakesh emerged on the scene with their all-time and all season plays like Andha Yug, Ashad ka ek Din, Adhe Adhure, et al. 

Rakesh in fact profusely wrote plays and short stories (nai kahani) through late fifties but his trilogy of plays comprising Laharon ke Rajhans, Ashad ka ek Din and Adhe Adhure excelled over all his other creativity and was hailed as the pioneering in modern Hindi plays and brought him all the due name fame and money.

Of the trilogy then Adhe Adhure is estimated to have been staged for a record 50,000 times nationally and internationally! 

These playwrights were followed by many others through those decades as National School of Drama catapulted the productions of the above and many other plays in the national capital in those brisk times led by Ebrahim Alkazi, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Shyamanand Jalan (in Calcutta) other associates in direction and trained thespians beginning with Manohar Singh, Om Shivpuri, Uttara Baokar, Surekha Sikri and more of their contemporaries who worked with the NSD Repertory.

We also had other other plays in between like Ek the Gadha urf Aladad Khan from satirist Sharad Joshi and adaptations from Hindi novels to Hindi stage like Raag Darbari by Shrilal Shukla which took a scathing dig on the corrupt-to-the-core system of the sixties and seventies.

While the Hindi Theatre scene in sometime also felt the dearth of original Hindi plays and a little later it survived on adaptations from Hindi short stories – a phase of Kahani ka Rangmanch popularized by another NDS Director Devendra Raj Ankur when the repertoire of Munshi Prem Chand provided sustenance among many other contemporary story tellers. Even as experiments like this continued through eighties and nineties, playwrights like Swadesh Deepak emerged with equally popular and socially relevant plays like Bal Bhagwan and his all-time hit Court Martial. 

To name the best Hindi plays of all times in the background as recounted above, my pick would be Andha Yug, Ashad ka Ek Din, Adhe Adhure and Court Martial. While the first two are written with a historical context and characters from Mahabharat and the Sanskrit poet Kalidas, the plays dwell analogically and symbolically on the social, cultural and political conflicts and dilemmas of the modern times. 

One of the earliest enactments of Andha Yug was staged in the open air setting at the Old Fort in Delhi. The idea was to create a spectacle as big as the issues involved in Mahabharat and their relevance in present times. The character of the nayika, the lead actress in Ashad ka ek Din called Mallika is one of the strongest and most intellectually inclined yet extremely sensitive women characters of the stage plays written by Rakesh, if not by all Hindi playwrights. 

Kalidas is portrayed as a writer partly succumbed and partly torn between his self-respect and need for accepting the patronage of the kingdom of his time. In that sense the play underscores the same dilemmas of the artists and even the need for flexibility on the part of administrations and establishments in modern times.

Adhe Adhure is a play about middle class aspirations vis a vis financial limitations in families, consequent marital stress, neglected upbringing of children or even insolence among growing children. In its presentation the play is crafted as a highly experimental work, even as its confines are essentially set to a drawing room. 

Court Martial was hailed as well as slightly criticized for baring the caste prejudices in the armed forces, which some said were not a phenomenon at all. Whether or not it was phenomenal, or totally absent, the play did touch upon the issue in a highly sensitive and redeeming plot that would end with poetic justice for Sawar Ramchandra at the end of the Court Martial presided over by an unrelenting, self-righteous but a caring commander Col Suraj Prakash. 

Suffice it to say that these plays have come to acquire the status of the modern classics of Hindi Theatre with of course some more. If you are a first timer, you must not miss these and some more plays, which may also be discussed in due course in these columns. If you are a regular theatre buff – more so of the Hindi variety – you may as it is feel the strong impulse to go and see another version of these plays by another set of director and actors any time with the hope of discovering a newer flavor or experiment on stage!